Placentia

Placentia was awarded $4.6 million in transportation grants Monday to help pay for improvements to Orangethorpe Avenue and to start preliminary studies related to the city's $300-million railroad lowering project. The Orange County Transit Authority's board of directors voted to give Placentia a portion of $60 million in federal funds available this year from the Regional Surface Transportation Program.

Re "L.A. children's television host in 1950s, '60s," Obituary, Oct. 7 As a child of the 1950s, while my parents worried about the communist living next door, I shared my lunch with the late "Sheriff" John Rovick. Afternoons were divided between playing "Red Light, Green Light" with Engineer Bill; trying to make my own puppet to resemble Webster Webfoot, which sat on the lap of Jimmy Weldon; and the battle for my attention between "Skipper Frank" Herman on "Cartoon Carousel" and Tom Hatten with his "squiggles.

The FBI has been brought in to help investigate a cache of explosives — grenades, blasting caps and fuse igniters — found in a backpack under a bridge in Placentia on Monday. Orange County bomb squad officials were brought in after the backpack was discovered about 8:50 a.m. Monday by people working in a drainage ditch, Orange County sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said. After cordoning off the area, bomb technicians detonated the contents of the backpack, including six grenades, blasting caps, fuse igniters and blasting powder.

Orange County's the Bruery is inherently optimistic. With many of its beers aging in barrels - 1,500 barrels, to be exact - its concoctions require patience, sometimes as many as three years before they can be enjoyed. It may be a while, then, before the Bruery is regularly maxing out its new tap space. The 4-year-old Bruery this week unveiled a revamped 1,100-square-foot tasting room that will be open daily. By expanding into the office space next door, the Bruery has been able to make room for 40 taps.

A mug shot of a wide-eyed man with a full-grown beard flashed on the evening news. The television reporter said he had been stabbed to death in Placentia. Rebecca McGillivray said she knew the image was her father, but it was not the man she remembered. Instead, she provided a description of a different man than the one on the broadcast. Her father, James Patrick McGillivray, 53, was the first homeless man to be murdered in a string of stabbings that began Dec. 20 in northern Orange County.

I've always been fascinated by people who like their own family. I just take for granted they haven't spent much time with them. Our whole family is getting together next week to watch the Super Bowl. Most of them are nice enough, but they will all want to talk to each other, and while the game is going on. The 7-Eleven Kid will be talking to her imaginary friends, the twins will be banging on drums, and everyone will think they are so cute. It'll be horrible. I mention this because every morning that I go to breakfast I see the same two old people.

After nearly a decade of steadfast denials, three interrogations and two inconclusive polygraph tests, the man who last saw 20-year-old Lynsie Ekelund alive led detectives to a tree-dotted Santa Clarita hillside last week and indicated where to start digging. He had done a construction job there, police said, and it was where he had buried her. Tearing into the hillside with a backhoe Wednesday, investigators unearthed a blue sneaker. They got on their knees and continued searching with small shovels and handheld buckets.

Placentia officials said Wednesday that they have tentatively agreed to pay $5.5 million to settle a claim by Caltrans that the north Orange County city misspent more than $36 million in state funds to finance a now-defunct rail corridor project. The dispute involved the $650-million OnTrac project, which was shelved in 2006 after failing to receive federal funding. The project, which included sinking five miles of railroad tracks into a concrete trench, dragged the city deep into debt and forced officials to cut services and sell parkland to recoup the losses.

The risk: more damage to an already severely injured knee, and a future of arthritis. The reward: a senior season of high school football. To Garret Dressel of Placentia El Dorado High, the risk is worth the reward. That's why Friday he will again strap a brace over the torn anterior cruciate ligament in his knee and play in the Golden Hawks' Century League game against Tustin. He did the same thing last week and caught four passes for 138 yards and two touchdowns in El Dorado's 24-7 victory over Villa Park.

Placentia police ramped up their search Thursday for an 81-year-old man who vanished just weeks after marrying his childhood sweetheart. Robert "Bob" Harrod was last seen Monday afternoon at his home on Carnation Drive by his son-in-law, who told authorities that he went to Home Depot and that when he returned, Harrod was gone, said Placentia Police Det. Corinne Loomis. Harrod's wife filed a missing persons report that night. Harrod and Fontelle Heeter wed June 29 in Fullerton.

Trial began Monday in Orange County Superior Court for a woman and her son charged with murder in the slaying of her cancer-stricken husband 11 years ago, allegedly to avoid paying for medical treatment and to profit from his life insurance and estate. Sandra Jessee, 58, and her son from a previous marriage, Thomas Dayton Aehlert, 39, are accused of paying two men $50,000 to have Jack Jessee killed in the couple's Placentia home. Jack Jessee, 56, was stabbed repeatedly on the night of Aug. 13, 1998.